If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I am not a religious person (agnostic) but I would think they are separate. My understanding is that intelligent design does not necessarily mean the Christian God or Christian story of creation but that a higher power whether a god, or alien etc started things up.

In some ways yes, in others no. The modern 'pioneers' of ID are all old earth, common-descent believing 'semi-evolutionists'. Or so they say anyways. It really depends who they are talking to. One of these guys trying to pitch ID to a creationist crowd will make it sound very creation-like. If the ID'ist is trying to convince a scientist, he will attempt to make it sound scientific and within the realm of methodical naturalism. So its really hard to say. They arent consistent.

But ID, in many cases, as its been presented (or attempted to be presented) in the classroom is creationism:

I would say they arent really the same. But I would say ID is a watered down version of creationism with pseudoscientific jargon behind it (but no actual research) to get around constitutional restrictions against teaching religion in the classroom. It is always strange to see the alliance between ID'ists and creationists though. Creationists should be throwing Behe and the other leaders of ID into the same category they put most scientists: Evil people who've bought into the lies of Satan. But being allied is politically expedient I guess.

I think coming up with another definition of what they originally believe is just a marketing ploy - easily countered by some whale species, which at one time had rear appendages. What great intellect would give limbs and then take them away? Simply a carnival shell game and needs to be exposed for what it is accordingly.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

is a pejorative term coined by some Darwinists to attack intelligent design; it is not a neutral label of the intelligent design movement.

Scientists and scholars supportive of intelligent design do not describe themselves as "intelligent design creationists." Indeed, intelligent design scholars do not regard intelligent design theory as a form of creationism. Therefore to employ the term "intelligent design creationism" is inaccurate, inappropriate, and tendentious, especially on the part of scholars and journalists who are striving to be fair. "Intelligent design creationism" is not a neutral description of intelligent design theory. It is a polemical label created for rhetorical purposes. "Intelligent design" is the proper neutral description of the theory.

2. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is based on science, not sacred texts.

Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Instead, intelligent design theory is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature observed by biologists is genuine design (the product of an organizing intelligence) or is simply the product of chance and mechanical natural laws. This effort to detect design in nature is being adopted by a growing number of biologists, biochemists, physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science at American colleges and universities. Scholars who adopt a design approach include biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, and mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University. (3)

3. Creationists know that intelligent design theory is not creationism.

The two most prominent creationist groups, Answers in Genesis Ministries (AIG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR) have criticized the intelligent design movement (IDM) because design theory, unlike creationism, does not seek to defend the Biblical account of creation. AIG specifically complained about IDM’s "refusal to identify the Designer with the Biblical God" and noted that "philosophically and theologically the leading lights of the ID movement form an eclectic group." Indeed, according to AIG, "many prominent figures in the IDM reject or are hostile to Biblical creation, especially the notion of recent creation…." (4) Likewise, ICR has criticized ID for not employing "the Biblical method," concluding that "Design is not enough!" (5) Creationist groups like AIG and ICR clearly understand that intelligent design is not the same thing as creationism.

4. Like Darwinism, design theory may have implications for religion, but these implications are distinct from its scientific program.

Intelligent design theory may hold implications for fields outside of science such as theology, ethics, and philosophy. But such implications are distinct from intelligent design as a scientific research program. In this matter intelligent design theory is no different than the theory of evolution. Leading Darwinists routinely try to draw out theological and cultural implications from the theory of evolution. Oxford’s Richard Dawkins, for example, claims that Darwin "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (6) Harvard’s E.O. Wilson employs Darwinian biology to deconstruct religion and the arts. (7) Other Darwinists try to elicit positive implications for religion from Darwin’s theory. The pro-evolution National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has organized a "Faith Network" to promote the study of evolution in churches. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the NCSE, acknowledges that the purpose of the group’s "clergy outreach program" is "to try to encourage members of the practicing clergy to address the issue of Evolution in Sunday schools and adult Bible classes" and to get church members to talk about "the theological implications of evolution." (8) The NCSE’s "Faith Network Director" even claims that "Darwin’s theory of evolution…has, for those open to the possibilities, expanded our notions of God." (9) If Darwinists have the right to explore the cultural and theological implications of Darwin’s theory without disqualifying Darwinism as science, then ID-inspired discussions in the social sciences and the humanities clearly do not disqualify design as a scientific theory.

Scholars and science writers who are willing to explore the evidence for themselves are coming to the conclusion that intelligent design is different from creationism. As mentioned earlier, historian of science Ronald Numbers has acknowledged the distinction between ID and creationism. So has science writer Robert Wright, writing in Time magazine: "Critics of ID, which has been billed in the press as new and sophisticated, say it's just creationism in disguise. If so it's a good disguise. Creationists believe that God made current life-forms from scratch. The ID movement takes no position on how life got here, and many adherents believe in evolution. Some even grant a role to the evolutionary engine posited by Darwin: natural selection. They just deny that natural selection alone could have driven life all the way from pond scum to us." (10)

Whatever problems the theory of intelligent design may have, it should be allowed to rise or fall on its own merits, not on the merits of some other theory.

That's easy to explain. He's walking a thin line and making everyone happy. He sounds like he believes in ID without saying so, and he says he wants his kids to be able to learn and question everything. The real nugget in his response is when he says that the federal and state governments should stay out of it and that individual school boards should decide it. The school boards of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Possum Crick, Alabama, might well make different decisions.

What this means is that you should vote for the other guy in the next election ;).

This guy has fallen for the common fallacy that evolution somehow rules out or is mutually exclusive with a 'creator'. He also misrepresents it by saying evolution says everything is just accidental and random.

I do agree with him when he says 'he wants the kids exposed to the very best science'. Unfortunately, ID doesnt pass the test. There's not even much to debate on this point, seeing as how there isnt even any research to back up the claims. The biologic institute just recently (in the past few months) put up some research papers, but they actually don't really have anything to do with ID at all. So why should ID be the only scientific theory to be taught in school, that has absolutely zero research behind it... just a couple pop-science books?

Watch the video again, and substitute in your mind every instance of evolution with psychology, and intelligent design with astrology... then you can understand the silliness of what he is saying.

2. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is based on science, not sacred texts.

Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Instead, intelligent design theory is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature observed by biologists is genuine design (the product of an organizing intelligence) or is simply the product of chance and mechanical natural laws. This effort to detect design in nature is being adopted by a growing number of biologists, biochemists, physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science at American colleges and universities...

The concept of ID might be based on science but it is not science. It is a supposition that what cannot be explained scientifically is evidence of design. A huge leap and not at all scientific.

Scholars who adopt a design approach include biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, and mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University. (3)

Michael Behe has admitted that his definition of a theory is so broad that under it astrology could be defined as theory. Funny stuff.